


To Live is to Work

by Kozakura_dono



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Chad is a girl, Gender Bender, Genderbending, Graphic Violence, High School, Host Clubs, I wrote this like 1-2 years ago so beware, Many OCs will be introduced and killed, Middle School, Prostitution, Underage Sex, during middle school, head canon, well more like 3 or 4 years ago haha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-04 13:44:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kozakura_dono/pseuds/Kozakura_dono
Summary: The world isn't always kind to girls.  Sado Yasue understands cruelty very well.





	1. The end.

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this when I was 13. It's been sitting on my computer for years now. Even if it's not the best, I feel like posting it. Thanks for reading.

Steady fingers gripped a dull key with as much surety as they would have held the body of an unknown insect. Disgust, distrust, and something like a passing feeling of confusion all flitted through her, and unknowingly caused her eyes to bore at the door with such intensity that her new landlady noticed. 

“Miss?” her strident voice called, a little hesitant and intimidated. The words sounded strange, as though the woman was normally confident in her manner of speech. 

The door unlocked with an audible click a second later, and she didn’t hesitate at all as she stepped through the entrance, even though just about everything in her being was trying to claw its way back home. 

She looked around, noticing the impersonal off-beige of the walls and the sheer emptiness of everything. It was stark, dusty, and impersonal. The exact opposite of what she called home.

The little woman bustled around, apparently becoming more confident as she showed her every nook and cranny of the space. It wasn’t really necessary. The place was too small to get lost in.

One square meter of entrance. Four square meters of living room. Three more square meters of kitchen. She stooped over cautiously whenever the landlady led her through a doorway (of which there were few) because she doubted they were any higher than two meters high. Hell, she knew they were less than two meters high because the damned ceilings were barely 2 meters high.

Landlady was talking at her. “..And I’m…sorry …..your name … again?”

“Sado Yasue.” she tested out, feeling the foreign words slip from her lips as easily as anything, which was to say, not easily at all. She struggled not to stutter out the words or squeak out her answer and checked to make sure she’d said anything at all. For some reason, Naomi said a lot of things in her head, and only in her head, when she would swear on any Bible that she had uttered them out loud, too.

That name was an old battle, one she hadn’t thought about since she discarded that moniker for her real name. Naomi was a solid name, an old name, and had a good past behind it. Yasue was just so… She didn’t even have words for it. ‘Peaceful River’ just wasn’t at all how she thought of herself and it reminded her of her parents, which in and of itself was enough to make her wrathful on a bad day.

The woman continued talking, and Naomi answered when needed and settled a definite rent. Roughly an hour later, she handed the woman an envelope of key money and the first three months rent. She walked to one of the tiny, bare corners with a pillow and a blanket he had made her, and tried to make herself as small as possible as she tried to sleep.

0-0-0-0

Naomi stretched, popping and cracking every bone in her body as her muscles protested from last night’s awkward position. She’d finally managed to fall asleep after she took out an English to Japanese dictionary she’d bought at the airport that’d been sorely testing her linguistic abilities. She was not ashamed to admit her written English was leagues above her written Japanese, and honestly, after about six years of total disuse, her spoken Japanese had degraded tremendously.

It was downright shameful, however, that the only thing she felt truly confident about writing in Japanese was her own name. Simple sentences were out, because her mother had just been starting her on them before her death, and her vocabulary was stuck at that of the below average eight year old’s because in the last year with her parents, they’d switched from speaking Japanese at home to English in order to prepare for the move they never made to the States.

She opened up the book again, trying her hardest to concentrate. It was a long morning.

0-0-0-0

In a fit of frustration, Naomi slammed her dictionary into a wall, took a freezing cold shower, and donned a large, dark grey hoodie and equally roomy sweatpants. They, along with her similarly colored sneakers, were meant to be worn by men, but at 187 centimeters, finding women’s clothes was a chore. She didn’t even pause to loot through her boxes for a mirror after she showered and just waged war with hair that after three days of neglect was successfully attempting to form dreadlocks.

She stomped out of her apartment and started running. She wanted to go out and buy some comfort food, but she wasn’t confident enough in her finances for it. She was starving, but the thought of eating while he was at home suffering all by himself made her physically ill. She pushed her anger into energy and pumped it through her legs. 

She came to a park and she shuddered, an odd mix of shame and pleasure, memories of twisted grimaces and sticky, halfway dried blood oozing from too pale skin came to mind, distorted facsimiles of grins stretching lips that’d once lived into parodies of happiness as the monster within her roared with delight. Everything was dark, the lights were too bright, and the sun hadn’t been out yet so why-

Naomi took a centering breath, and the vibrantly green, tropical plants and dusty, muted dessert flora she’d been familiar with morphed into pale pinks, pretty reds, and lilacs. She shuddered and turned the opposite direction. She didn’t want to deal with that right now. Or ever.

She ran past her apartment again and continued going past it until she reached the town bounds. She turned back again, guiltily stopping at an outdoor market for meat and eggs.

0-0-0-0

“I think there’s something wrong,” his voice wheezed into the receiver, guttural with pain and exhaustion. Bile rose in Naomi’s throat.

“I’m coming,” she murmured. “I love you,” she added. She was over halfway there already. She prayed he would hold out just a bit longer.

“I don’t- Who is this?” he said gently, his voice somehow even worse than before, confusion coloring his voice. Tears stung at Naomi’s eyes. He was lucid. That was something.

“I’m coming,” she repeated. “I’m coming.”

0-0-0-0

There was no hesitation in her stride, even when Naomi came to the locked door. She unflinchingly kicked it in, running to his room.

Unlike with the other door, Naomi gingerly pushed the one to his room open. She exhaled sharply. So this was it. This was the last time she’d see him, the last time anyone would see him before his spirit descended into wherever the dead went. 

Personally, she thought he’d been cheated, his life, his memories slowly drained out of him before he was anywhere near approaching death.

She felt sick. She’d felt sick for over a month (over a year, maybe two, but who was counting? Could misery be quantified?) now, but the nausea and worry and grief reached a crescendo as she laid her hands on the wooden door.

Naomi steeled herself and firmly pushed the door open.

0-0-0-0

Naomi could remember him in the thrum of health and vitality, muscular and strong, a well-preserved man despite the horrors and neglect common to the unwanted children of his own time. He’d taught her, a nasty, bitter, little mongrel, a truly beastly child who’d had no qualms lying and stealing, robbing and mugging, hurting innocents until they begged for mercy that had never been present in her soul, right up until she sent them, often sobbing and screaming, into oblivion. He’d taken her in and shown her that mercy was a gift of the strong, and that love would see them through everything.

Love was supposed to be a savior, a redeemer, a pillar of utmost strength to lean upon in trying times, so why did she feel like her insides were being torn open and left out to rot?

0-0-0-0  
He didn’t say anything. He just stared ahead, silent, too far gone to seem solemn or stoic anymore. Naomi was glad, in a way. He was either entirely absent, catatonic really, or so physically and verbally aggressive she was reminded of herself from the time before he stepped in and taught her.

Once upon a time, when it was just him, her, and the ancient lake behind them, singing with promise still like the sweetest sap of a flytrap, he’d taught her everything she needed to be a real person. He was like her and she was like him, and they both found comfort in the fact that they weren’t alone anymore, damned to this world of disregard and peace, where enemies had to be kept alive, where rivals couldn’t be humiliated and subjugated the way they were meant to be, where they couldn’t choose to leave humanity and come back again as they pleased. 

She was strong and he was stronger, and together, they’d made it, until finally, his feeble, mortal body had succumbed to the stronger urgings of his nature and every sickness of the old afflicted seemingly at once. He’d had an eidetic memory, once. Within the first three months of visible symptoms, he hadn’t known Naomi anymore, hadn’t realized she was there because it was her duty to tend to him. He’d thought she was there to send him back to the depths from whence he came, broken but fulfilled and waiting to be made whole and lacking again.

He had the same spirit she had. When he was weak, he found strength, the sort that could leave her unconscious for days, left bleeding and bruised and broken where she lay, the sort that would have killed anyone else and nearly succeeded taking her out enough times that she learned to heed whatever he wanted when he raged. She could have taken the beatings in earnest, even if she was only trying to help. She could not afford to miss a day’s salary when it was all she could do to keep them fed and housed.

Then, with no warning, the air shifted and the shell of her Abuelo came back to life, fury popping his withered veins and flushing his weathered face purple. Naomi took a step back when he made a move to get out of bed, but even she could feel the finality here. She gulped and steeled herself, plunging forward.

“You fucking bitch, I don’t who the hell you think you are but-” 

She forced him into an embrace. Her neck stung as his teeth pressed into her flesh, tearing away and drawing blood and a hunk of skin and muscle. She gritted her teeth through the burn of pain. She couldn’t breathe, her blood was clogging her throat as he continued to attack, to defend himself from the ever-present threat in her blood, but she could spare another minute before she needed to leave to pass out in peace.

The tiny burst of strength completely depleted him. Trying to force air past lungs too weak to receive any, he sputtered, wild eyes that were fixatedly glaring at her as he choked out his last words.

“Leave me.” 

Naomi did as he asked, walking with long practice as her vision tinged black at the edges and a temporary reprieve approached.

0-0-0-0

There was no money for a funeral. Abuelo was cremated. Naomi didn’t want the ashes, so she scattered them in the desert. Just like old times. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was what he would have wanted. Maybe it wasn’t. Naomi would never know.

That was that, she thought numbly, the full brunt of the desert sun bearing down on her with no effect, her body healed enough that Abuelo’s only remaining mark on her skin stood out starkly against the earth-brown of her bicep, white wings against a heart and snake, even though it should have been a dog. Abuelo had been right, like always. There was nothing for her here in this desolate place now that he was gone. It wasn’t long before Naomi found herself back on a plane.


	2. Chapter 2

Nine days.  That was how long Naomi had before she ran out of money completely. 

All of her savings- and what had been left of Abuelo’s- had been used to secure her the three plane rides and her apartment.  Nothing but the barest amount to cover her other sole necessity, namely food, had been spared.  She felt stupid now that everything was over and done with in regards to Abuelo.  It would have been smarter to have either stayed in Mexico until his death or arranged for someone else to take care of the body and let him die alone.  It was a frigid, icy, greedy stance but maybe that was the type of mindset she was going to need to adopt to survive.

She needed a job, and desperately.  She’d been working since she was twelve, which was by no means legal in Mexico, but it was somewhat easier to get around since factories weren’t known for their strict adherence to any type of law.  Japan would be harder.

She was just a year and a couple weeks short of emancipation, but until then, she wouldn’t be able to work and she’d have to lie about Abuelo’s death.  She didn’t want to end up at government’s whims or her father’s parents’, if they were still alive.

Naomi finished her quiet contemplation because she knew she was just stalling.  She needed to keep looking for a job.

0-0-0-0

“I’d like to apply for a job.”  She congratulated herself internally at the perfect flow and diction of the words, even if it was a tad quiet, and even if she sort of felt like fainting.  The girl manning the front desk stared at her quizzically for a moment, with a professional smile still in place.

“A job?” Naomi repeated louder, and the girl looked distinctly confused.  Naomi felt a little nauseous and light headed.

“I’d like to apply for a job.” she said again, attempting to say it louder.  Her voice caught half way through and failed her.  She gulped.  A trickle of sweat ran down her scalp.

“I’d- I’d like to apply for a-a job.”  The girl stared at her mutely for a moment before jabbering something at her, and going behind a door.

Naomi fidgeted, picking at a callous on her finger and biting it until she had a loose bit of skin to gnaw on.  She tore it off too quickly when she heard lowly murmuring voices behind the door, and her finger began bleeding sluggishly.

The girl who had been manning the front desk returned, professional smile still in place, with a man in a business suit.  His face was as severe as the dark hair on his head and his face bore the cracks of a life lived sternly despite the fact that he couldn’t have been older than fifty.

“There are no positions.”  He looked her up and down, and his lip seemed to curl in distaste.  Naomi felt like a particularly unpleasant bug.  Outwardly, she stammered something out, and quickly turned and fled.

0-0-0-0

Naomi walked into the fast food joint with a little less hesitancy than the previous place, a moderately fancy hotel.  She took a moment to peruse the ads around the place and sighed in relief as she translated one into something along the lines of ‘Help Wanted’.  She couldn’t help but notice the cleanliness of everything around her, the sparkling clean windows and spotless floors. 

She walked up to another girl manning the foremost cash register and noticed the same, plastic, professional smile.  Naomi spoke before the girl did.

“I’d like to apply for a job.” she said, much firmer than before.  The girl’s smile remained fixed to her face, even as her eyes seemed to scan Naomi up and down.

“I’ll get the manager for you to speak to, miss.”  The smile remained. 

A haggard looking woman came out and eyed her, the same way the stoic, hard-faced business man had.

The manager said something too quickly for Naomi to understand, and she must have realized it.  She took a centering breath.

“You need to speak good Japanese for this job.” she said slowly, though patiently.  There was some pity in her eyes.  Naomi nodded, knowing that was a dismissal, and feeling worse than ever for not keeping up her fluency.

“Thank you.”  Naomi nodded, turning and leaving.  If it were up to her, she would come back in a month or so when her Japanese was better.  But it wasn’t.  In a month or so she’d have long run out of food and funds for rent.

0-0-0-0

She tried four hotels, six restaurants, and a whopping eleven fast food joints, and they all needed papers and decent Japanese.  Every.  Single.  One.    The best excuse some of the places had given her was her age.  Why the fuck did she have to fifteen to flip a burger or clean a toilet?  For God’s sake, every place she’d visited would be like _heaven_ compared to the various factories and other jobs she’d worked in before, and even the cleaning jobs here were at least equipped with the things they needed.

Naomi was amazed by the sheer pleasantness of all the places she’d visited.  She’d known her previous workplaces were kind of a unpleasant, but…  She had no clue it’d been that bad.

She pulled her flimsy sweater over her shoulders, the thin, stretchy fabric straining over her muscles, and surreptitiously pulled up the tight, wildly floral pencil skirt to the smallest part of her waist.  She shivered at the sudden loss of warmth, and came to rest at a small bench in front of a storefront.

Naomi frowned as she examined herself in the glass.  The skirt was bolder in color than any other garment she’d seen on random passerby, and a good deal shorter than when she’d sewn it together just last summer from old curtains that’d been lying around the house.  Amidst a sea of people wearing loose, long, neutral clothing, Naomi looked like a garish whore to just about every other woman’s Madonna.

The thought sparked an idea, albeit an unpleasant one.  Naomi thought she might know a place where papers weren’t always necessary.  As a matter of fact, she’d probably look suspicious if she offered up work papers of any sort.  Resolutely, she began looking for neon lights amidst the darkness.  She needed to find Karakura’s red light district.

0-0-0-0

Soaplands, fashion healths, image clubs, pink salons, and hostess bars.  There were hundreds.  HUNDREDS.  Naomi didn’t want to be prostitute, but holy hell, there were opportunities everywhere.

She continued strolling through what should have been called the Pink light district for all of the neon lights and billboards and advertisements and the likes that were done up exclusively in the same, eye watering shade of pink.   Trying to keep from rubbing her eyes, Naomi noticed a petite woman with huge, blondish hair snicker and point towards her while whispering something to the similarly dressed girl next to her. 

At the scoffing looks of more than one ‘lady of the night’, she finally snapped, and despite the cold, practically tore off her sweater, fully revealing one of her nicest black wifebeaters underneath.  Eye rolls may have followed, but more than a few jutted out their chests.  Naomi smirked.  It wasn’t often she was grateful for being overly endowed, but at times like this, at least she had a response to the wordless taunts.

Her lip curled with distaste as she passed an establishment that had cutesy cartoons imitating fellatio among other sexual acts, and another with a huge banner depicting ten women with thin black bars covering their eyes.  Of course, each had creamy, delicate, overall perfectly pale skin, tiny builds, and most sported elaborate hairstyles in flashy shades of brunette and blonde.  Naomi felt at her own drab locks with more dejection than normal and couldn’t help but notice how thick her arms were compared to the walking female ideals of perfection in every picture and group around her.

Physically shaking her head, Naomi made herself focus on what was important- finding a job.  In tandem with her thoughts, her stomach growled pitifully, and she ignored it as best she could while she continued walking, hoping to find even a slightly respectable job out here.

Her stomach kept growling but simultaneously she felt nauseous with disgust.  She should have stayed in Mexico, at least for another year.  That way she’d have been able to qualify for emancipation, and along with that, the right to work legally.

A biting wind whipped across her skin, the gust so strong her eyes instinctively shut against the assault.  She trudged over to a lonely little bench that rested on the uncolored, dull backside of some whorehouse.  She sat down to mope.

A single, frosty raindrop plunked down onto Naomi’s nose, startling her from her useless bemoaning of her situation.  She glared up at the darkened, starless sky with red rimmed eyes, half wanting to just stay in the rain and half wanting to find some place with dry, softly cushioned seats and warm food.  Her feet stayed firmly on the ground as the fat, cold rain steadily gained momentum. 

Naomi bore the assault miserably.  She didn’t want to go to that lifeless, frigid, little apartment she was now forced to call her residence when what she really ached for was the dependable heat of her desert, the dryness of the air, and at this time of the year, the start and end and middle of a dozen different flowers and cacti.

She missed the natural contrast, the harsh beauty of the evening sun glaring down on a cliff and painting it purple while benevolently caressing the blossoms into their full, resplendent charm.  This land of cold, impersonal buildings, where even whoring was a complex, social competition was nothing like the weary kindness of her home.

Naomi stared heavenwards.  Everything was grey.  The buildings.  The people.  The plants.  The pink lights attempted to bequeath a little life into the dreary sky, but failed, ultimately giving only the edges a faded mauve color that still managed to look about as beautiful as a week old corpse.

The dullness felt like it was seeping into her, and Naomi let it.  There was no point in fighting anymore, not when she’d exhausted all of her options. 

The cold, bleakness seemed to express itself as a physical sensation, working in tandem with the rain, washing her skin with huge, cold slaps and exacerbating every little wound on the inside too.  She had failed spectacularly.  She wasn’t preparing for high school, the original intention behind moving back to Japan in the first place.  She sure as hell wasn’t happy.  She wasn’t even fed or warm.

She brought her knees up to her chest, beyond caring for decency.  She lost herself in her dejected musings, growing more hopeless by the second.

She only noticed the man sitting next to her when the unforgiving rain ceased splattering her and she began to warm up.  She started, and looked up only to see a large, navy blue umbrella hanging over her.

“I thought…cold,” he said, just a little bit self conscious but mostly concerned and boyish.  Naomi stared dumbly, unblinking.  His smile grew the slightest bit uncomfortable after several seconds of that so she averted her gaze.

“I’m okay.”  That was a lie and the slightest bit of heat radiating from his body was already making her feel a little warmer, but she hated being so weak she needed a stranger to help her.

“…Come inside?”  He gestured at a strangely discreet little building in right ahead of them with heavily tinted glass windows and walls.  Naomi hesitated.

“…Tea and food..” he coaxed, and Naomi stood up, completely unashamed.  If there was food…  Well, food was the universal bribe.  He grinned up at her, all handsome sunnyness and bright white teeth despite the ugly weather.  All at once Naomi noticed a few things, like his peaking, delicate collar bones from his partially unbuttoned shirt, and his sparkling, greyish eyes.

He stood as well, leading her into the building.  Naomi noticed with some disappointment that he was a solid ten centimeters shorter than she was, but oh well.  His bone structure was phenomenal, and now that she was looking, his lips were a really cute shade of pink, and really soft looking too-

“What’s your name?” he asked softly, his voice a pleasantly smooth bass.  She blinked, considering where he worked.  No matter how pretty he was, Naomi wasn’t going to give a name that could be traced back to her to some random guy who worked in a pleasure district.

“Sato Nao.”  Really close but at least she’d remember it.  His grin was the tiniest bit sly, and incredibly charismatic.

“Hanagawa Momotaro.”  He somehow managed to amp up his charisma as he took her hand lightly ran his lips across her knuckles for just over a second.  Naomi stood, completely stunned and blushing, as her hand hovered in the air, the area where those soft, pink lips had caressed on fire, tingling in an incredibly pleasing way.

He turned, bringing her through the empty, spacious lobby through a cozy hallway the color of softly dancing candlelight.  There were several little, warm brown tables with artistic, earthy toned vases.  It was all very pretty, and very romantic.  Her blush persistently remained, though it thankfully wasn’t too noticeable.

The door to his office was made of some dark wood and had the kanji of what Naomi assumed to be his name engraved on gold plating.  He opened it smoothly and continued to hold it open for a moment, looking at her invitingly.  She ducked her head and quickly strode into the room.

Lighter than the hallway and the lobby, the office was a warm, yellowish sort of cream color with a sparkling, small chandelier hanging from the ceiling.  Across from a light wood desk sat two ivory chairs and a small table with a pile of sweets and a large bento atop it.

“I…get the tea,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed as he swooped out of the office, the door wide open behind him.  Naomi stared longingly at the food.

“Come sit!” he ordered, pulling out one of the chairs while he held a dark kettle with a mitted hand.  He placed the kettle on the table and strode over to his desk, rummaging through a compartment until he found a matching set of cups and tea bags.  Naomi sat.

He poured the water into the kettle for her, smiling encouragingly at the wall of candy and chocolate separating them, and opening up the bento.  It was very prettily arranged, to the point that it was nearly too nice looking to eat, but just then Naomi’s stomach growled.  She dug into the food with no further prompting, prettiness, appearances, and politeness flung to the far recesses of her mind as she devoured the bento.

Belatedly, she realized that the bento was probably meant to be shared.  Oops.  She looked down questioningly at the pitiful remainder and looked to Hanagawa.  His eyes were open wide, his expression caught between genuine confusion and astonishment. 

“Do you, um, compete?” he asked tentatively.  Naomi shook her head, her gaze lingering somewhat aggressively on the small portion left.  She was still hungry.  Very hungry.

“You can finish it.”  She mumbled a thank you, the last bit finished in seconds.

She was still hungry, but the ache in her stomach was somewhat appeased, so that was good.  She absently picked up the mug and downed the tea (it was pretty tasteless and completely unfamiliar, as her choice of caffeine was black coffee strong enough to give an almost cocaine-like energy increase) as she stared at him. 

He was even prettier under the flattering, soft lighting of his office.  His hair was shiny in a way that spoke of luxurious products instead of unreliable, often unavailable running water and twelve hour work days under the unyielding rays of the sun, and his skin was clear and smooth looking, not a wrinkle, callous, or blemish in sight.  Naomi caught a whiff of cologne, something heady and very, very masculine despite his delicate appearance.

Hanagawa had blonde hair, too.  Naomi knew it had to be dyed but it was a pleasant, really calm yellow, not light enough to be platinum but not dark enough to be gold.  It was pretty natural looking, actually.

“…Why were you out there?” he asked, and Naomi realized she’d missed the first part of his question because she was too busy observing his prettiness.  She fidgeted, unconsciously shifting her gaze away from his face.  She tried to think of a response, any response that would be cooler, more impressive, than the truth, but her mouth was way ahead of her.

“I need a job.”  At his raised brow, she added on, “I’m not a prostitute.”  He raised his brow even higher still.

“What skills do you have?”  He leaned forward.  Naomi tried not to gulp as a little bit of a chiseled, pale chest became visible.

“Heavy labor, textile related jobs, cleaning, and agriculture.”  She’d spent a solid hour memorizing that phrase, though this was the first time she’d actually gotten to use it.  He grinned.

“I need a maid.  Would you…work with me?  This is my first business.”  All Naomi could do was blink and nod dazedly.  Seriously?  Just like that?  That was all it took to get a job?

He spoke for a while longer at her, speaking of hours and pay rates and such, and the pragmatist in her listened and asked for higher.  He said nothing of papers or I.D or other forms of identification that would have sold out her age.  It was her first stroke of luck in what had seemed like forever, and maybe her relief and gratitude showed on her face, because he took one of her hands between his and said something she couldn’t understand in a comforting manner.

“Stay until the rain stops?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and he smiled.  He left again and returned with a blanket.  Naomi ended spending her night with him, learning new card games and listening to his records.  It was her best night yet in Japan.


	3. Chapter 3

Naomi really didn’t have much to say about her job.  It was pretty gross, and she left her uniform in Momotaro’s office after her shift finished, and showered before she went home.  Mexico didn’t have love hotels, so she hadn’t quite known what she was signing up for when she took the job.  It didn’t matter.  She was paid about three times as much as she used to make during a ten-hour factory shift in a _single hour_.  Cleaning a little bit of bodily fluid was nothing for that kind of pay.

That was what she was doing right now, actually.  A vaguely burning, chemical stench assaulted her nose as she mixed a solution of nine parts warm water to one part bleach.  Methodically, Naomi pulled out leather cleaner, antibacterial soap, air freshener, cornstarch, and clear nail polish from the small storage closet and began her rounds.

If there was one key difference between this job and her last one, it was the frequent change of scenery.  Even at the factory, where she might get different assignments on her manager’s whim, no matter where she went, the floor was gray and crusty, the workstations were uniform in color and condition save for the differing machines near them, and it was always, always, stiflingly hot and mind-numbingly boring.

Love hotels, especially the one she worked at, had…themes.  Sweet Secret, as her place of employment was called, catered to a variety of fetishes, from the standard to the outlandish.

Naomi sighed as she checked with the desk girl to find out which rooms were vacant, already feeling as though the evening was going to be a bad one.  The girl (Harumi or Haruka or Haruko or something like that) winced in sympathy as she read off the list.

“You should probably just start with the Red Rooms and get it over with,” she suggested, though she was still entirely sympathetic.  “Mari-chan told me that the customers left Garnet, like, ten minutes before you got here and Yoko-chan didn’t start on them before her shift ended.”  Mari-chan was the other desk girl and Yoko-chan was the daytime maid.  Naomi almost cried, but at the same time, she was kind of happy it’d only been a short time since the previous occupants had vacated.

There were four Red Rooms at Sweet Secret, and they were designated by the red-hued gemstones Ruby, Carnelian, Imperial Topaz, and Garnet.  The Red Rooms were designed to cater to those with extreme BDSM fetishes, and had varying toys in each room.

Garnet was the worst by far, and the hardest to clean as a result.  It was basically a medieval style torture chamber with dozens of intricate, strange steel contraptions that couldn’t just be stuck in a bucket of bleach water, and there was always blood that needed to washed away before it could stain.  It was also frighteningly popular, and had a set amount of time( forty five minutes on a regular day, but probably only about half an hour now since that bitch Yoko hadn’t done anything to clean the room before she left) before the next visitors arrived.  She needed it completely clean by then.

Naomi steeled herself as she rushed back to supply closet to grab some denture cleaner.  Blood didn’t squick her out.  The diseases they transmitted did.  She raced to bowls of building with her odd assortment of supplies and opened the door.

An actual, audible groan escaped past her lips before Naomi could stop it as she gazed in dismay at the sheer mess the previous guests had left behind.  Semen and female ejaculate were splattered everywhere, and there was at least ten times as much blood. 

What the hell?  Had there been an orgy or something?  Or was she going to find a damn dead body amongst that mess?

 Naomi got to work quickly, already familiar with the process of removing blood from just about anything.  It was kind of ironic in a way- the skills she’d used as a budding gangster to keep from getting caught in her earlier years now aided her in her mostly legal, legitimate job of cleaning up the remnants of others’ sexual encounters.

She tried really hard not let any of the sodium peroxide powder touch any of her skin, since she was pretty sure it would burn and scar her.  She knew that triple layering latex gloves probably still wasn’t as good as the protection a good set of chemical resistant ones afforded, but oh well.  She should also be wearing protective goggles and a mouth covering too, but she wasn’t doing that either, and she had never done that.  She was pretty confident she’d survive a little bit of base powder if it touched her skin.

As the chemical mixture set, Naomi rushed to begin cleaning the most obviously dirty instruments, going about her work as methodically, efficiently, and quickly as possible.  It was better if she went about her tasks that way.  Otherwise, she got too preoccupied wondering what some of the more horrendous looking things were used for and getting both aroused and nostalgic for time she really shouldn’t have been proud of.

Just shy of half an hour later, Naomi grabbed everything and made a quick retreat after spraying what seemed to be a can’s worth of air freshener.  She’d gotten all of the obvious blood cleaned up, and even managed to begin polishing a few things before her time ran out.  Unfortunately, as she was leaving, she saw customers leaving Ruby and groaned.  ‘It’s not as bad as Garnet, at least.’ she thought, but the only thing that kept her motivation up was the fact that she needed money for her utility bill.  She went to work.

0-0-0-0

A few minutes after her shift ended, Naomi had showered and cleaned the bathroom.  She changed and left her uniform in a bag outside of Momotaro’s office as she had done since the beginning and frowned in confusion at the sight of a plastic grocery bag and a note.

‘Bought too much.  Thought you might want them.  PS- You can use my shower instead of the hotel’s, if you want.  Keep up the good work!’  There was a crude drawing of a thumbs up along with a smiley face.  Naomi felt a heated sensation under skin, a feeling that was becoming more and more familiar the longer she worked here.

Momotaro was really nice.  And really, really attractive.

Naomi was delighted to find enough food for a solid dinner.  Momotaro really was a cool guy

0-0-0-0

Naomi enrolled herself in school.  School.  After the veritable shit storm she’d been through over the past, oh, two years or so, school remained a constant thorn in her side.

It wasn’t that she was slow or anything.  It was just that she didn’t have time to go to school for seven hours or the hours of studying she would in all probability need to catch up on top of that.  In the greater scheme of things, she could make do with barely average grades.  She could not afford to lose her job.  Her job secured shelter, food, and overall stability and economic safety.  Good grades, though proven to yield more money in the long run, would do absolutely nothing for her as she was.

It was a bitter truth, but time had made it easier to bear.  She’d been working a full-time job while caring for an increasingly helpless adult man and attending class since before middle school.  To be completely honest, it wasn’t just Abuelo’s words that memorable day when he’d saved her that kept her off the streets and from happily beating the shit of anyone and everyone who so much as looked at her the wrong way and also from quietly making random people disappear when they ventured outside at night.  It was because balancing work, school, and caring for him made maintaining what’d passed for her social life impossible.  A proper beating, with the fun mental fuckery and such took a decent amount of time, and making someone disappear and cleaning the body up just right could take days.

Having the knowledge that she could manage the workload didn’t make Naomi dread the idea of going back to school any less.  She liked sleep.  Like, a solid nine hours.  She liked copious amounts of intense physical activity.  Sleep and exercise, which she’d been getting plenty of since she’d started working, would have to set aside to accommodate for the seven hours she’d be missing.

Uninvited recollections of verbal spats with unsympathetic teachers flashed through her mind and Naomi scowled.  Abuelo had been a constant source of moral encouragement in the beginning, so the arguments with her instructors never turned violent before they all learned to accept her absences, even if a few had ended up vanishing (not dead; Abuelo was very sophisticated and had always had a superhuman will and unnatural self-control over his baser desires, unlike Naomi).  But Abuelo wasn’t around anymore and Naomi’s childhood fury hadn’t just magically disappeared _and_ she’d never had the chance to work through it on her own.  It was just another worry on top of all of the others school would bring, but one that mattered perhaps more than anything.  She’d cleaned up her behavior for so long, and she didn’t want to blow it on some insignificant asshole of a teacher.

She really shouldn’t be whining since public school was free and Japan’s education system was better than Mexico’s (at least where she had been), but it was really hard to convince herself to attend school when the only reason she hadn’t dropped out at twelve was because Abuelo had asked her not to.  His plan had been to send her to high school in Japan while saving up money for her attend college somewhere, but that was before he’d gotten sick, back when he still worked and she hadn’t had to use up all of their savings to keep the two of them alive without slaughtering every asshole who tried to take advantage of their vulnerable position.

Naomi had spent just under a month a menial job that paid well though, and after a while, she’d had to make a decision.  Her job paid awesomely compared to her prior salary, and Naomi could absolutely see herself working the way she had been for the foreseeable future.  She was used to having barely any savings and used to working hard to support herself, but she knew it wasn’t what Abuelo would have wanted.  Before he’d gotten sick, he’d always been pushed her to strive for better than what they had, tried to convince her that she could get out of the poverty, the depravity that surrounded the both of them.  Her mother had.  But Naomi could and would always respond that her mother had been killed for her trouble.

In the end though, Naomi could argue all she wanted against the desires of a dead man.  Abuelo had wanted her to pursue an education, so she would.  That was all there was to it.

0-0-0-0

Panting, Naomi grinned as energy surged through her legs.  She raced through blooming greenery, the newly emerging, colorful flora blurring as she ran faster, faster, faster, never stopping, avoiding every other person. 

This was hers.  Her time, her body, her strength, and she loved every second of it.  The vague aches and pains, the stiff joints from scrubbing floor after floor on her hands and knees, the sore back from stooping over her dictionary too long, it all faded under the might of her feet pounding on solid pavement and gliding over dew-slicked grass.

Onward, onward, her body urged, and Naomi couldn’t help but comply, reminded of the days of her childhood when she’d disappear for hours and run wildly through burning hot sand, unhindered by blisters or the intensity of the sun.

All outside stimuli faded away as her focus centered inward, frighteningly clear and single-minded.  She could feel every heart beat, was acutely aware of her blood oxygenating and deoxygenating as her body accounted for her labor, felt the beginning of lactic acid bringing a familiar burn up her calves and thighs.  She ran on and on until she finally had to stop, brought out of her pleasant reverie by an annoying beeping.

Naomi blinked.  She’d started running at maybe ten, but it looked to be at least early evening.  This wasn’t unexpected however.  She always got distracted when she ran, and time lost all significance.  She stretched quickly before jogging back home.

‘I’ll miss this,’ she thought a little sadly.  Naomi had about a week before she was due to begin classes at the start of the new school year, beginning just a few days before her birthday.  Because she ran during school hours, she’d have to eliminate her exercise from her schedule.

‘It’s a necessary sacrifice,’ she reminded herself, but the platitude did nothing for her sense of loss.  Running was one of the only ways Naomi could escape reality, and now, she was willing trading her only form of relaxation for another time-consuming worry.  The trade off was far from even.

‘It’s a necessary sacrifice,’ she repeated to herself, but the words rang hollow even within the confines of her mind.  Only time would tell whether school would yield more benefit than detriment, and that was that.  As she was, Naomi had only a little time to get ready before her shift started.  These useless thoughts and the futile brooding definitely weren’t going to pay her rent.

0-0-0-0

“This is Sado Yasue.  She’ll be joining our class, so please treat her well.”  It was apparently a standard introduction, though Naomi was getting quite a few stares, including a disapproving glance from the teacher.

Normally, Naomi wouldn’t have cared at all.  Unfortunately though, not only did she have something like first day of school jitters, the school uniform was…  Inadequate.  So she’d had to improvise.

While she’d never worn a sailor fuku before, it turned out to be fairly decent in terms of fit and comfort though she’d had to alter the shirt to accommodate her much larger than average frame.  That was fine.  She’d been doing that for ages.

The problem was the skirt.  Mashiba Junior High School’s skirt went to, on a girl of average height and build, just shy of mid thigh.  Naomi was 1.87 meters tall and weighed over 95 kilograms, most of it unadulterated, solid muscle.  In the largest size available, the skirt did not cover her ass, much less her thighs.  Because Mashiba had a strict dress code and no alternate skirts, the one easy fix she’d decided to go with was simply wearing the pants of the male uniform.

Naomi walked to her seat with little fanfare after a clipped order from the teacher.  She nearly scoffed at the sight of a blonde who’d no doubt gotten her shade straight out of a bottle and who also happened to be wearing what passed for Japanese gang paraphernalia as well as a scowling, mean looking kid with a shock of messy orange hair atop his head.  Neither of them seemed happy to have the seat separating them filled, but Naomi didn’t care whatsoever.  She wasn’t there to make any friends, though it was helpful to know she’d already been marked a troublemaker by her teacher.

As soon as Naomi was settled, the teacher began prattling in earnest.  It was something math related, Naomi was sure, but she grew bored with twenty minutes.  Thankfully, she had a head for math, and even though the material was new, she really didn’t need to spend another forty minutes learning about it or God forbid practicing it.

Instead, Naomi began to think about something that’d been bothering her in the best way possible since the night she’d gotten her job.  Of course, she was thinking about Momotaro.

Naomi had started using his personal shower (she hadn’t even known he had a separate apartment that he lived in at Sweet Secret) a few days after he’d written her the note.  It was much more convenient because she didn’t have to rescrub everything down and it let her get home a little earlier.

What Naomi couldn’t stop thinking about though, was last Saturday.  She’d finished her night shift and had just gotten redressed after her customary shower and stepped out of the bathroom, and Momotaro had been about to enter his office.  As soon as he saw her though, instead of continuing on, he’d turned and smiled at her in such a manner that left her breathless and blushing, turned on his heel and advanced toward her instead.  She’d stood there gaping and completely paralyzed, her eyes wide with something like fear and much more like anticipation as he came closer and closer, grin in place and growing ever more devious as he inched forward.

Finally, he’d come to stop right in front of her.  Naomi could remember every detail, as hyperaware as he’d made her, the way his tongue darted out to moisten soft, kissable pink lips before speaking, the way his unmarred, pale neck had been exposed and how his eyes had been a steely slate grey instead of the lighter hue they normally were.

“How did it taste?” he’d asked, and Naomi’s blush had deepened as she tried to figure out what, exactly, he was talking about.  He seemed to notice her embarrassment and confusion as he smirked knowingly and clarified, “The food.”  Honestly, his clarification had made her feel even more embarrassed.  Less than two months working in a love hotel, and the first thing that came to mind when he’d asked that question was his…  Definitely not his food.

“It was nice.  Thank you for that.”  He’d inclined his head slightly, blond spikes flowing with the movement.

“It wasn’t a big deal.  I just thought you might want it, and I didn’t want to waste anything.”  As her blush had receded, she hadn’t noticed his coming ever closer, warming her personal bubble and making her body begin to tingle a little bit.  Her attention had been too preoccupied by his smooth gripping of her hand and the tiny, electric circles he’d started rubbing into her palms with his thumb.  His ministrations couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it’d felt like eternity and a day to Naomi before he let her go and bid her a good night. 

Naomi felt ridiculous now, thinking about it, though she could feel the heat gathering across her cheeks and neck from just recalling it.  All it’d taken was a tiny bit of skin to skin contact and invasion of her personal bubble to get her hot and bothered.

“If you could join us, Sado-san, we could continue on with the lesson,” an icy voice snarled as it cut into her thoughts.  Naomi blinked, her face remaining completely blank effortlessly.  The teacher stalked back, her hands on her hips as she tried to make her 1.53 meter frame look intimidating.  Naomi was unmoved.

“Do you not speak Japanese?” she asked, her voice coming out sickeningly sweet and patronizingly slow.  Naomi didn’t blink this time, didn’t even let herself breathe.  If she breathed, moved at all, she’d choke out her teacher.  And that shit didn’t look too great on paper.

The blonde girl next to her snickered and Naomi made careful note of that.  The carrot top stayed silent. 

The teacher continued on.  “Attention seeking foreigners have no place in my classroom.” Naomi stared up at her.

All she did was raise an eyebrow, the visible one on the left side of her face, but it seemed to have a markedly negative effect on the teacher.  Of course, on the inside, she was hissing foul language and filthy slurs that would have had Abuelo belting her in the mouth, but oh well.

The teacher’s gaze was frigid and very, very ugly.  “I don’t know what _foreign_ schools are like.  But in this _civilized_ nation, students respect their teachers.  They take notes.  They _pay attention_.”  Naomi almost laughed in the woman’s face.  Trying to alpha dog Naomi was like trying to force an active volcano into submission.  It just wasn’t done.  Not unless _she_ said so.

The teacher continued to glare at her.  Naomi remained unmoved.  Eventually, the teacher seemed to get that Naomi wasn’t going to give her the reaction she wanted and went back to the front of the room.

Naomi spent the rest of class obviously staring out the window, though she was listening into the teacher’s useless droning.  The only thing she learned was while before, she’d assumed the remaining portion of the lecture would be boring and generally useless, she now knew that for a fact.

0-0-0-0-0       

Honestly, school could have gone a lot worse.  The teacher hadn’t tried to come at her again, and that counted as a victory in Naomi’s opinion.  She’d just stared out the window until lunch, when Naomi escaped the classroom and wandered the school.

Mashiba Junior High was really freaking big.  And made of brick and concrete.  Naomi’s old school had honestly just been the remainder of a large trailer with only God knowing its previous purpose.  The floor was dusty and cracked because it literally just the earth the trailer had been deposited on.  Grass would have grown between the crevices if any sunlight had been able to shine through the roof. Abuelo had found them a tiny hole in the ground to live out the rest of his days in, and because of that, they’d ended up in the boonies where no one really wanted to be.  It’d kept them a little safer, since the trouble they attracted like bees to honey didn’t like piss-poor little hovels congregated together to form a village, but it had sucked a lot.

Naomi dipped her head back, her eyes falling shut just a bit as a gentle breeze whispered across her face and the spring sun shone down on her.  She let herself stop thinking for a bit and just let herself be.

Suddenly, Naomi heard scoffing and shouting.  She sighed.  ‘There’s always something,’ she thought, even her mental voice seeming to bite with acid and sardonic humor.  So much for peace.

It took perhaps half a minute to stride over to the problem, and maybe five seconds to assess the situation.  That mean looking kid who sat next to her was getting his ass beat by a group of guys who were probably high school students judging by their uniforms, or maybe just fairly large, spectacularly malformed kids from one of the neighboring junior highs.  Absently, Naomi noticed that about half of the ‘kids’ in the group looked middle aged.  She shuddered internally because you never knew with some of the freaks in this batshit crazy country. 

Not a single one of them noticed Naomi’s steady approach forward.  Gathering a good deal of annoyance and frustration by imagining her teacher’s pinched expression, she back handed one of the lugs softly enough that he only flew upwards a meter or three before crashing back down.

All of the sudden, they all seemed to take notice of her, sputtering and yelling, probably insulting her if she bothered to listen.  She didn’t though.  She just stared at them all, waiting for one to come forward.  A particularly ugly one, with strangely muscular arms and yet near gelatinous fat taking up the entirety of his neck, had the mean boy in a successful looking strangle hold.  He was desperately clawing for air, though his movements were becoming more and more feeble.

Naomi waited another few seconds before her patience ran out.  She crossed the distance in short order and the indignant sputtering went on, though she carefully noted that none of them actually did anything.

Until one did.  She felt a rough hand jerk on her shoulder, strong enough to turn her body several degrees toward the tallest guy in the group.  She inclined her head at him, willing him to speak.  She’d hear him out.  Maybe she wouldn’t have get her uniform dirty after all.

He grabbed her throat.  Naomi decked him full on in the face, feeling the still familiar, ever comforting snap of a crushed nasal bone, the slight coolness of air meeting her knuckles before they tinged with an oncoming ache.  Mentally, she noted that her hands had become unaccustomed to hitting.  She’d probably be rectifying that if this type of shit was common.

His goonies were silent.  Naomi turned to regard them all, her face still blank even though the front of her shirt was a little splattered with crimson.  She shuddered a little bit.  Wannabe thugs were ridden with venereal disease.

“I’m not having a very good day.”  That was all she needed to say, but then again, she was kind of caught up in the moment so she wasn’t sure if she managed to voice that thought.  It didn’t matter.  They cleared out of the courtyard in seconds, taking their fallen comrade with them and finally dropping the mean kid, who began to sputter and cough as the redness in his face began to fade.

She watched life flood back into his features as he got his bearings and stood up.  Naomi tried not fidget as an awkward silence formed, and his eyes darted around, as though searching for more assailants.  She couldn’t blame him.  There were angry red marks around his throat Naomi was sure would darken to ugly bruises overnight.

“…That was boring.”  She mused, when he continued to say nothing, even though she wasn’t much of talker herself.  He clenched his jaw.

“What?” he halfway snarled, managing to sound indignant, but then he couldn’t hold back a pained grimace.  Naomi rolled her eyes.  No wonder he wouldn’t speak.  His throat probably hurt too much.

“Don’t talk.”  If he didn’t want to be nice, that was fine with Naomi.  Class was starting again in a few minutes anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. I can really tell that I wrote this when I was 13 lol. Just to clarify due to recent Nasty Politics- Mexico is not a bad place to live. The bad shit that happens to Naomi has little to do with her external surroundings, and her experiences are...atypical, to say the least. There are specific reasons her life has turned out the way it has, and since this is in the Bleach universe, those reasons are likely to be supernatural in nature. Also, sorry for the chemicals. I think I found this method of blood removal from WikiHow. I now know that a good degreaser will remove blood from concrete. A guy on YouTube taught me that while showing how he cleans his garage after butchering deer. Gotta love the internet.


End file.
